In Great Hope of a Joyful Year Ahead

In the beginning of 2011, I was hopeful that the year would bring lots of positive changes.  Often the worse things go the less I write, so I did not contribute earlier this year.  If there are people following this blog, I let you down and I am sorry.  Now, at the end of this year, there have been big changes and in the most positive directions in three years.  My dear Leah is ready at last to get on with living her life. She has let go of much of the shame and regret she has been holding onto since she first developed the eating disorder.  It was a huge year of deep work and at last it's paying off for her.  I feel that though she will still likely have occasional set backs, she will keep moving forward.  The changes for her have taken place in baby steps in some cases as she has begun trusting in herself once again.
Since September I have been studying a Life Coaching program. I decided to do this course of work as a way to heal myself from the pain of the past and to make some sense of all that has occurred in our family. I believe that I can do this by helping other people learn to better cope with events like this and to live better lives in spite of difficult circumstances.  What has been interesting is that since I began taking this class my daughter has become obviously better. One big reason for me starting the class was to help my brain focus on something other than the constant worry I had become accustom to.  This focus on fear was not helping anyone, and in retrospect I believe that on the energy level my way of dealing was probably giving Leah signals that she was not and could not do well.  Almost immediately upon me taking my life in a different direction I noticed the shift in Leah as well.  Hummmmmm.
I cannot begin to tell you how much I am learning.  All of the ideas make complete sense to me and though it is seemingly obvious how we "should" live our lives, it is far easier to cave into the fear and do brain circles instead of shifting our thoughts and so our moods and actions. So, I am very ready to share. If you are reading this and would like to have a free half hour of coaching by me to try it out I would love to practice what I am learning.  It could help both of us!  Please contact my email:
bonnieo1958@aol.com        And for now,  "May you be well, may you be happy, may you be free of suffering."  (from an old Tibetan meditation prayer)    : ) Bonnie

Happy New Year and new positivity!

Everyone has the intention to make a new year better than the last, especially if the last year was particularly hard.  Well our family has that intention too.  I have been so desperate for hope this last year ( or three), that on a number of occasions I have solicited help from psychics.  Two, who I highly respect.  I have also kept my ear to the ground, books, radio, t.v. and any source of info. hoping to get a good dose of hope.  Hope goes a long way to get you through awful todays.  Well, the overwhelming consensus has been that with the new year comes new insight and new direction- toward a happier time for my girls and actually, way more positive energy world wide.  That's enough to give anyone hope, right? That is what I have clung to, I admit, on some of the very worst days this past year.  It is a good thing that a year ago I did not know that I would have a whole year to wait for some relief.
Well, it has been about six weeks, maybe seven and the change in my daughter, Leah, seems to be holding. I know that she is far from happy with herself but has found a place of acceptance for now, knowing that she is in recovery and that this is a process.  She has and is learning so much about herself through all of her suffering. I have learned so many life lessons right along with her.
I have noticed so often that during the most difficult times, there is humor and love and I remember those times and appreciate them when going through them. I know it is hard to understand how one can appreciate such uncomfortable times, but the love that we have for one another allows us to go through the tough stuff with a bit of grace and humor if we allow the moments to come.  I guess it happens when we surrender to those moments, knowing we cannot really change things,  so just go with it at that moment.   I see this every time I am with my mom and grandmother.  Their relationship is often difficult for my mom, as caretaker.  She sometimes has little patience, and my grandmother can be difficult.  But they love each other and there is so much trust that they do have some laughs in the thick of it.
Leah says she is strong enough to help her sister. We will see.  Her sister is tough when it comes to moving out of her disorder.  She has been residing at her level of the illness for so long that I am sure with each passing year it is harder to give it up.  Sally talks the talk but does not walk the walk. That is way anorexia is.  I pray that some day she will choose to be free of it, so we can all be free of it.
As long as one chooses to suffer from any addiction in the family, all suffer from it, no matter what the addiction.
So, as it is a new year and one that is shifting into the positive cosmically, we can at least here on Jan. 2 be optimistic that 2011 is going to be a better year for us all.  As I said, we shall see.....
Be well.

Bonnie

Down days

We had friends visit for the weekend.  The past three years we have avoided having friends visit.  Having company puts pressure on Leah.  She is usually miserable in herself and gets tired of pretending she is fine.  Leah had a melt down before they came. It was because our friends have a daughter who recently was married and she and her new husband wanted to come too.  I knew that this would be hard for Leah.  Our friends coming is one thing because they are not Leah's piers who she can compare herself with unlike the young couple.  Leah threatened to leave for the weekend to be alone somewhere,  not wanting to deal with the pain of seeing the happy couple.  I was almost in a panic.  They were all coming and expecting to see Leah.  What would my husband say at Leah's upset?  He would not be without a reaction if Leah left.  Things would become even more painful.  Leah feels she has gained more weight on the anti-depressant.    She had a really "good" week last week, until around Thursday, when things became stressful at work and she had a lot of difficulty dealing happily with some tough people she worked with.  I also think contributing to her anxiousness was her having gotten up at 5:00 all week to work out, and she had a several day stomach ache.  She gets stomach aches when she is abstaining from bingeing for a period of time.  All of this got her feeling discouraged because of her weight when she had been so diligent.  She had reached out to her therapist during the worst of the week. She had never done this before, but he had invited her to try checking in for a quick bit of encouragement when she needs it.  He usually says just the right thing when they talk so she believed he would do so on this occasion.  Well, his advice at the peak of the unhappiness was for her to go out for a run.  She felt this suggestion was a very unthoughtful response, as she was at work and had no possible outlet to take a break.  She was offended by him telling her this too, because her eating issues started as exercise bulimia and the comment felt like salt in the wound for her.  The rest of the week went downhill after that.
I had almost a week of feeling somewhat on the course to normal and happy and now feel we have jumped off that track.  I say "we" but Leah would remind me I am sure that this is not my problem, it is hers alone.  Her own hell and misery.  This thought is a hard thing to hear when you are a support person.  The eating disorder sufferer looks at herself and her own discomfort most of the time.  She is  aware of the affect she has sometimes but does not truly realize that she places the people that love and support her in their prison with her.  Therapists advise us to just live our own life as normal.  It is so difficult to let go and let that daughter be alone in her disorder.  She would be completely alone except for the disorder when the mind set is negative.  The fear that somehow if you stick in there keeping the person company she will eventually feel how deeply you love her and how worthy of happiness and a full life she is.  That idea keeps the support person in the trenches right along with the disordered person, but with none of the control.  We live a parallel life of sadness with our daughters as long as they suffer.
As I look at what I have written, I am reminded at how selfish the eating disordered life is.  The person is stuck in a selfish, and childish view of the world, with herself as the victim.  I see that wishing someone to want to be well for us is too much to expect when it all starts with her not loving herself as she should in the first place.
I pray for a guardian angel to be around us this week and for you too.  

Anti-depressants are not for everyone.

I visited my older daughter yesterday for a couple of hours. She is the daughter struggling with anorexia for eleven years and had decided to try another medication.  I think Sally was emboldened by the success her sister seems to be having with a new anti-depressant she is trying.  This is Leah's third trial with meds. Previously she has tried ones which are supposed to have the best results with bulimia and binge eating disorders.  She had felt that while on them she did not feel better but felt that she did not care if she binged.  Professional opinion suggested that she may have resisted the drugs and that may be enough to not allow them to be affective.  It surprised me to know that it can be such a thought controlled outcome.  She now is taking one that after a short time- and it is a faster acting one- she is much brighter in her outlook.  She tells me she has been a month without bingeing, which has gotten her attention.  I believe it has been a year and a half since she has been that successful not bingeing.
Sally just tried a well-known drug this week as prescribed by a psychiatrist.  She has tried two other anti-depressants herself in the last several years.  She had taken one for several months- long enough to know effectiveness for her.  This time in a day or two she had become very slowed and behaved like she is exhausted, if not seemingly under the influence of alcohol.  I was pretty concerned when I saw how she was doing yesterday.  She had decided that she will not proceed taking the drug.  I think it is a good idea.

Getting ready for another holiday season.

Today I went to Burlington to go food shopping for upcoming family gatherings.  I also went into J.Crew to pick up a hair clip, intending to leave quickly to get the rest of the errands done.  While in the store I became overwhelmed with grief.  I was surrounded by lovely clothes that my lovely daughter would, in her true self, be so fun to shop with.  She is such a joy, filled with enthusiasm and loves to clothes shop.  I felt that I would just cry in that grief, missing so terribly my shopping buddy.  She has exquisite taste in clothes and knows what one looks best in.  Occasionally my true Leah shows herself, and I look so forward to when she is with me again, in the state of mind she is meant to be all of the time.  If that nice clerk had said one more kind or helpful thing to me today I may have lost it,  and she may have seen what was just under the surface- a grieving mother.  I also had another thought today about this experience.  I know that people with family members with dementia suffer such grief from the loss of the true essence of their loved one.  I realize that this is an extreme comparison but what I am saying is that I am grateful knowing that it is possible and likely that I will have my daughters back to being who they truly are.  I have compassion now more than ever for what the families with a dementia patient  have lost forever.

I got a text from daughter #1 today and she went to two Dr. appointments today.  I hope that finally she will be steered in the right direction and someone will come into her life to cause her to want real change.

My best to you today, Bonnie

December 1, 2010 A Good day to begin

I was walking yesterday in the woods with the two pugs on what was likely one of the last mild, dry days of the late fall.  The dogs were so excited to be out and free that I could not help but feel their joy.  I was reminded of how lucky I am and our family is to have access to this beautiful piece of Vermont of our own.  Both my husband and I grew up in Vermont with little- the Vermont kids whose families could not afford to ski, and in my husband's case own a car or home.  So we never lose sight of all we have.
Everything that I think of in my life brings me back to the same plaguing questions:  Did all we have and give our children contribute to their eating disorders?  Did they somehow not develop the sense of what is truly important in life to feed one's soul because of something we did?
I write this blog as a way, if there is any, that I can support another who lives this life as a parent with a child who suffers from an eating disorder.  I do not have answers to this bigger- than- life problem, but I have compassion and eleven years of trying to find a way out of this.  I know more about eating disorders than I ever thought possible.  I believe that all of the treatment available can't work without a willing participant desiring to get free of ED. And, often, as in our case, treatment is not always available when the subject is ready.  We have found it exceedingly difficult to get the help we have needed within our state and certainly in our area.  When our older daughter began her life with anorexia  eleven years ago comprehensive treatment was impossible to find as the disorder was still so poorly supported.  What is so hard about anorexia is that the anorexic would really rather stay in that disordered life and after a time our daughter has done a really good job staying on the border line of acceptable under weight and severe under weight.  Her general health now is suffering from the years of abusing herself and I am hoping that this fact will finally give her the reason to get well for real.
The affect she has had on our family is devastating.  Her sister, who terribly resented her for being so disruptive in our family with her illness, has since found herself with a form of bulimia controlling her life for the last five years.  It is common if you have one daughter with an ED, you will likely have another one as well.  The battle for and with this second daughter has all but brought us to our knees. She was our light hearted girl with a constant smile before and is full of self-hate and shame with this disorder.   In bulimia, unlike anorexia, the sufferer is ashamed and wants badly out of the disease, so at least you have a willing participant- at least more of the time than with anorexia.  These disorders sufferers develop such perplexing mind games with layers of false ideas warping their views of themselves and the world. Thank you to our U.S. pop culture for making us all feel inadequate in America.  We are killing our children with unnatural images that they feel they try to imitate and which leave them feeling like failures.  I am hoping that the pendulum will begin again to swing in the direction of celebrating what is healthy and normal, instead of what is "perfect" and has been altered to appear that way.  I hope desperately that our children will be free of these false ideals one day soon and feel free to be who they are meant to be- beautiful as they are.
Today is another day of reflection, but inside the house.  The pugs are happy to sleep listening to the high winds and watching the rain drops.
I invite anyone who needs to vent to do so.  I have have days myself and for many years did not discuss what our family was going through with anyone but my own mom.  It often feels like we live in a prison as much as the sufferer does.  We alter our lives for what we think the need of the ED sufferer is.  We are being robbed of our own healthy and happy lives.  I know how you feel and if you need support, I am here and am probably living it too.  Hugs.

P.S.  What got me to start writing a blog was my daughter Leah starting her own.  I believe it is called Letting Go With Leah (lettinggowithLeah.blogspot.com).  She has changed the name so I hope I got it right.  If I can be on anyone's team to working to succeed in leaving a disordered life, parent or sufferer, count me in!